


Wired

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs
Genre: (a little bit but it's more about a misunderstanding), Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Singing, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26421862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: A few days before a performance with Tenacity, Roy wants to try an idea.
Relationships: Roy/Tenacity Williams
Kudos: 1





	Wired

Roy has been considering this particular idea for a while, and he understands that trying it just a few days before the performance might not be… ideal. And that is in addition to certain risks… But he is also aware of the precariousness of his own life, and he is so used to denying himself that his yearnings build and build until they become unbearable. He must try because he must.

He picks up the necessary supplies after calculations and a few experiments, and only then goes to Tenacity. ‘I want to try something. I need you to come with me.’

It warms something in Roy when he sees how Tenacity perks up. ‘Alright.’

‘And take your lairian, please. And claws.’

Tenacity smiles. Roy knows that his calling the finger-picks ‘claws’ amuses Tenacity.

He leads Tenacity to Charity’s bar though not into it but rather slightly behind it. It’s a small yard open from one side—almost like a stage. Back walls of shacks frame it, and different rods and parts of metal sheeting protrude here and there. Roy has surveyed this area and, if his initial calculations and tests are correct, it should be perfect.

‘You want to sing here?’

‘Yeah. I asked Charity, she doesn’t mind.’ Sometimes, in Shadowlair, they change locations from more conventional venues to something more open: a yard, a square. Confining the audience, cutting someone off goes against Roy’s nature. He wants to move also: a song must be carried, not kept to one place—but… Not yet.

It’s a good thing that Charity doesn’t mind. Roy thinks that Charity gives him more freedom than to any other performer coming to her. He’s never been met with a ‘no’ to any of his ideas, not from her.

He takes his supplies out of his pockets: six tight coils of wire of different thickness, a handful of clamps. ‘Help me out with this. We are going to stretch wires around here.’ He looks at Tenacity.

And there is a glint in Tenacity’s eyes, his expression almost like when he catches the scent of prey—but without violence. ‘Oh. Alright.’ Tenacity puts the lairian down carefully on the ground. ‘I’m yours to command.’

Together, they make a web of wires around the small yard. Roy tries to minimise the need for clamps, but he knows several of the wires will need to be shortened with them.

With preliminary preparation done, he steps back. The web is certainly pretty, if nothing else: it doesn’t, at a first glance, serve any purpose—it’s just there. There is beauty in the lack of 'usefulness'.

‘Roy, what—’

He raises his left hand. ‘Hold on.’ It’s not something he does often, and right now he needs to push just a little, outward...

He can hear that it works: the sounds of Les Sables become significantly muted, even the infra-sound of ventilation systems. He knows Les Sables well, the rhythms and noises coming to him even in dreams when he’s away, so sending cancelling waves back at those noises isn't difficult. And he can see by Tenacity’s thoughtful expression that his hunter feels it also. They won’t be heard from the outside of the bubble Roy has surrounded them with, and the noises of the world won’t bother them much inside.

‘Alright, now we can tune it.’ He goes closer to the strings.

‘Wha—’ Tenacity clears his throat. ‘I mean, what do you need me to do?’

‘We are going to adjust this whole construct. You will be using the standard tuning, yes?’

‘I will use anything you need me to.’

Roy touches the closest wire that he is certain would be— Ah. Yes. Perfect. At least humidity isn’t much of a problem.

The next one is off by a tone, so he tugs on the wire itself to adjust it. The next one is too long to adjust that way, but on the spot he decides that it would sound good in an octave drop, so it needs only a slight tug. The next one he asks Tenacity to touch...

‘You can hear it without, you know, getting your ear close?’

He looks along the wire at Tenacity. There is no hostility in Tenacity, at least Roy doesn’t think there is. Only an undertone of astonishment in his voice. ‘Yeah.’ Roy turns his attention back to the wire, trying to adjust it with enough force that it makes a difference but not enough that the wire breaks or warps. ‘Shit, I can’t pull it tighter, I’ll put a clamp on it. Sound it again?’

Tenacity does, then gets a claw on his finger and tries again. Roy asks him a few more times while moving the clamp around until the wire sounds the way he needs it to.

They go through the whole web, adjusting wires out by one. Some are perfect, just as Roy calculated, others need only slight adjustment. Yet others require placing of clamps. Roy allows the sounds guide him. Then, when each piece is tuned, he steps back. There is no wind here, which is one of the reasons why he’s chosen this location. Yet if he listens closely, especially with the Cone of Silence humming over them, he can hear the air moving slightly, enough to make some wires sing very quietly.

‘What are you planning to do with this, Roy _bach_?’ Tenacity asks. In his tone, there is no impatience or any accusation, only genuine curiosity and anticipation.

Roy looks over the web again. Then glances at Tenacity with a smile, and pitches his voice just so: _‘Magic.’_

One of the wires sings in resonance.

He steps closer to the web. ‘Try not to make a sound for a second?’ He closes his eyes and moves slowly through the yard.

He listens.

The world is beyond the barrier. For now, the more immediate, more palpable sounds are the barely-there tensile songs of the wires, the creaking of metal in the walls, the sand under his feet—and Tenacity. His breathing, slow and a bit tense—he’s probably trying to not even exhale too loudly. His heartbeat, elevated. His body, filled with all manner of strange, mundane, wonderful things, working, keeping him alive.

Roy tries to focus on the yard itself. He can focus on Tenacity later.

‘Stand here,’ he orders and opens his eyes. ‘Where I am now. With your lairian. I want you to do arpeggios— _Come Into The Garden_ , _The Curse of the Fold_ , anything, but not very fast. Just a few bars, keep at it. I want to check...’

He steps away, watches as Tenacity takes the lairian out of its case, slings the strap over his head.

Hm. Roy should pick a stool from the bar. He doesn’t want to force Tenacity to stand the whole performance.

Then Tenacity walks over to where he stood. ‘Here?’

‘Yes. Oh wait.’ Roy moves in front of Tenacity, makes a few steps back. He wants to hear the whole thing first.

Tenacity takes the first notes. _The Curse_. Roy loves it, even more so for the fact that they have created it together.

‘Not too fast?’

‘Perfect.’

‘It’s lower than usual.’

Roy closes his eyes again. ‘Yes, I hear that. We can sing it in a duet.’

Tenacity misses a note, but then continues.

‘Mm, add more notes. I want to hear every string. Doesn’t matter which note as long as it’s— Yes, like this. Keep it...’

Tenacity always says that his playing is nothing special. But then, Roy doesn’t consider his own singing nothing special either. They fit together.

He reaches with his Fluid to the strings carefully—then, from them, out to the web of wires...

_‘Fuck,’_ Tenacity breathes out.

Roy can’t help smiling.

The shimmer.

Magic sounds like this.

Each string in the web, nudged by his Fluid, sings quietly, but just loud enough that it can be noticed. And together, they become a glimmering choir responding to every note of Tenacity’s playing. Roy amplifies the sound waves, guides the wires—it’s easier than he thought it would be, and in principle not much different from certain things he’s done many times with his abilities...

It’s beautiful. A mesmerising sound, adding more depth and an ethereal quality to Tenacity’s gentle strumming.

‘Fuck...’ Tenacity breathes out again. ‘Roy...’

He steps around, still keeping his eyes closed, and stops when he reaches a spot he usually takes by Tenacity’s left side when they perform.

‘Play louder, with the volume you’d use for an audience,’ he instructs.

Tenacity does, then adds a few more notes, embellishments—Roy likes it. And he can pick up every note. It’s like breathing. Like singing.

Then he adds his quiet voice. Just to test it.

_‘Fuck.’_

He adds volume. This is slightly more difficult: he has decided that shimmer should be only for Tenacity’s playing, so Roy has to keep track of a lot of things at once including his own singing, making sure the shimmer _doesn’t_ pick his voice.

But this is... good.

A string pings, and Tenacity slaps a hand on the lairian, cutting the sound off.

Roy finishes the phrase, and opens his eyes.

Tenacity looks away, shaking his head and blinking rapidly. ‘You know, Royalty, if someone hears this and doesn’t... appreciate it, I will be judging that person so, _so_ fucking hard.’

He isn’t sure what that means so he clarifies, suddenly worried: ‘Do you like it? Does it bother you? We can do it the usual way if it’s annoying.’

Tenacity shakes his head again. ‘No. I mean! This is wonderful. But won’t it be...’

Roy’s throat tightens. Of course Tenacity knows what he is. Is this how everything ends? Over Roy’s stupid idea?

‘Won’t it be difficult to sing?’ Tenacity finishes. ‘There is so much sound going on.’

Roy glances around. ‘No. I used to sing in a choir. And your strings will carry me. Want to rehearse here to get used to it?’

Tenacity smiles. He looks so soft, as though these sounds, the shimmer, are something indeed beautiful to him. ‘Yes. Let’s try some more.’

Roy prefers solitude after performances, especially after the more intense ones. Music is one of the few languages he can use to truly convey his emotions, his _stories_ , and for a while (an hour, usually, but sometimes two or three, although Tenacity and Charity often ask him—and sometimes _threaten_ him—to not do much more than an hour) he isn’t burdened with matters of survival, isn’t burdened with his runaway thoughts—for a few hours, he is a Technomancer in a way that isn’t about electricity. And when he has to end it, he needs time. Maybe people take his reluctance to socialise after performances as arrogance—he doesn’t care.

Tenacity, though, usually goes to the audience. He says he doesn’t like it if the barrier between the scene and the audience stays. He asks what people enjoyed about the performance, what songs they know... Just talks about stuff, maybe over a couple of drinks. Roy wonders whether one of the reasons might be that Tenacity needs something, some reminder that he isn’t only a hunter.

And of course Tenacity is handsome and he can be charming, and after performances there is both energy and tenderness in him, something very... sincere and open. He isn’t a bastard then. Of course people see it, and like it, and, well, he’s a musician with considerable skill, and...

And it might be that Roy is raw also. It might be...

The shimmer—it was for Tenacity. There are times when Roy sings for people—and there are times when he sings for himself and for Tenacity. This whole set-up, this pushing of his abilities to maintain all the micro-waves and micro-fields to bring about resonance, to make the sound work, the adjustments and the... _All_ of it he has done for Tenacity. The sprawling audience—after the performance Tenacity pointed out just how many people has come—is only incidental.

Roy should probably feel tender. Should be filled with love for everyone and everything—well, fuck that. He feels like shit, and it only grows the more he watches as one guy flirts with Tenacity so overtly that even Roy can see it; the more Roy hears it in the intonations, in everything, Tenacity’s elevated heartrate...

The web of strings rings angry.

The guy who’s _standing too close_ to Tenacity lifts his eyes, and Roy can hear a gasp. ‘That was... That was a very cool performance. Never heard anything like it.’

Roy tilts his head. ‘Go through the city when Technomancers are singing, you might be surprised by what you hear.’

Tenacity frowns slightly. ‘Roy? Is everything—’

Roy looks at him. ‘Help me remove the wires.’

‘Uh, sure?’

‘Um,’ the _bastard_ says. ‘Could you... maybe let them stay? I mean, they look so cool and people want to—’

‘They are a hazard. And too valuable. This is Les Sables—’

_‘Roy.’_

His vision is so sharp, but more so is his hearing, tuned too much to Tenacity’s heartbeat, his voice, the ringing of the strings of his lairian when Tenacity moves and the case just...

Roy clenches his fists. ‘I’ll do it later. Have fun.’

What is he doing? What is he _thinking_? He walks away, keeping his eyes on the ground, despite some cheers from the crowd that has spread out but hasn’t disappeared. He doesn’t want to be noticed right now.

He should have kept all this to himself. This idea—so, so stupid, what do they even know? What does anyone even know about what it cost him? He feels so drained and too charged at the same time.

There are too many people, there are groups everywhere around the bar, on the bridge... He is going to hear them all night if he goes to his hideout. Partying. Probably has to go to Tenacity’s place to get away from it all—but Tenacity might need that place? For the night? For his company.

‘Roy, honey, that was wonderful!’

He stops. ‘Thanks, Charity.’ He glances at her.

She’s standing on the steps leading to the bar. ‘Care for a mug of hot chocolate? For your throat. You didn’t even take long breaks in those two hours.’

‘Two? I didn’t notice.’ He doesn’t expect to have a mug full of chocolate pushed into his hands right away. He smiles. ‘You had it prepared beforehand?’

Charity smiles also. ‘When I realised that you weren’t going to stop at an hour-and-a-half mark. Cheers, love!’

‘Cheers.’ The chocolate rolls on his tongue, thick and soothing, and he realises that he has indeed strained his throat somewhat. He hasn’t sung outside like that for a long while. Sometimes he imagines going to AllLights Square and singing with all he has, making the city ring. Let _them_ hear.

He pushes himself away from the wall. ‘Charity, do you think the wires should be removed?’

They walk back to the yard. Tenacity is nowhere to be found—Roy can feel him some steps away. Probably ready to leave with his date.

‘You know,’ Charity says, a mug in her hands also. She looks cosy but there is a sharp, dangerous edge to her nonetheless. ‘He never drinks anything strong after your performances. Though even if he wanted to, don’t worry, the bartenders in the area know they would get in real trouble if they allow him to.’

‘I guess it’s because he has _other_ matters to attend to.’ The words taste terrible, so he takes another sip, trying to wash it away. ‘…Sorry.’

‘You are angry. Honey, you can’t continue—’

‘There is nothing to continue. So, the wires?’ He turns away from Charity, facing the web. It glimmers dangerous.

‘You know, the performance was really something else tonight, dear,’ she says gently.

‘It’s nothing,’ Roy protests. ‘Just... I heard a twelve-string lairian a while ago, and wondered whether it could be replicated.’

‘Don’t diminish what you’ve done, Roy. It is very good.’

There are a lot of wires here, and before each use this web would need re-tuning... If it isn’t cut away. Wire is valuable.

Roy touches one piece. It rings quietly—all of it is ringing, it’s that most people don’t notice the sound or can’t even hear it. But to Roy, it sings.

He puts the mug on a ledge on one of the walls, and closes his eyes, and holds his hands out. Can he...

He touches a string with his Fluid. It is different from copying resonance off of Tenacity’s playing—but not entirely removed from that. And there are only open strings—but he can put ‘clamps’ with his Fluid and make sounds gently fade and roll...

He tries the first notes. Then the next bar. The next...

And sings.

_On a cobweb afternoon in a room full of emptiness_  
_By a freeway, I confess I was lost in the pages_  
_Of a book full of death, reading how we’ll die alone_  
_And if we’re good, we’re laid to rest anywhere we want to go..._

He lets the metal walls and sheets and cliffs resonate with the wires, with his voice. He doesn’t sing loudly, and adds as many embellishments as feels beautiful.

_In your house I long to be_  
_Room by room, patiently_  
_I’ll wait for you there like a stone,_  
_I’ll wait for you there alone, alone..._

He sings and sings, his voice full in his throat, waves of sound flowing through him. The second verse and chorus ring, then he plays the strings without the voice. He lets the strings fade on their own before the last verse, and when the sound almost disappears, he continues:

_And on I read until the day was gone,_  
_And I sat in regret for all the things I’ve done,_  
_For all that I’ve blessed, and all that I’ve wronged,_  
_In dreams until my death I will wander on..._

The last chorus, he can barely breathe, a tightness in his chest, but he pushes the words and the song out until it ends on that cry of loneliness and longing.

_I’ll wait for you there alone, alone…_

The song fades. He can hear the last notes ringing—quietly, quieter, until all of it is gone even to his ears. A sadness settles in him as his body becomes heavy—not a vessel for his voice and his Fluid and dances but a cage, needy and cumbersome and awkward and broken in too many ways. Would it be that he could abandon it without regret and without remorse, even though he’d have to give up his songs and signs and his heart beating in sync with another.

...Only now he realises the quiet filled with attention of too many people around him.

‘The first to clap,’ Tenacity’s voice says quietly, ‘will be shot through the foot.’

Roy drops his head, presses his knuckles to his mouth, listening, _listening_ to Tenacity’s quiet steps. ‘You don’t even have your rifle at hand,’ he murmurs when he feels Tenacity stopping just behind.

‘I can improvise, you know that.’

‘Go rest, boys,’ Charity says.

Roy looks at her and sees... He doesn’t know what he sees. He isn't good at seeing. Maybe _she_ knows, though. Maybe she knows what the fuck all this is about.

‘Good idea.’ Tenacity reaches around Roy and picks the mug with hot chocolate, and, when Roy turns, drinks from it. ‘We can remove the wires in the morning if you want, Roy.’

‘No,’ he says at last. ‘I think it’s better if they stay here. Nobody will touch them.’

They say their goodbyes to Charity and start making their way through the throng. There are still many people around, and a lot of them are discussing the performance, and Roy doesn’t want to—

‘Any of them comes too close, I’ll growl until they get the message and go away,’ Tenacity says casually, almost lazily.

Roy chuckles, some of the tension leaving him. ‘My guardian hound.’

‘All yours.’

But not really, is he? It’s just a figure of speech, one of many Tenacity uses all the time, making Roy confused.

Not really.

‘You know, those wires,’ Roy starts, ‘That was...’ _Technomancy. I am a Technomancer._ Something Tenacity expressed disdain of several times. Not that it’s anything new, Roy hears it often—but from Tenacity, it... hurts. ‘It was good,’ he finishes. ‘We should do it again.’

‘It was more than good!’ The lairian sings very quietly in its case with each of Tenacity’s steps. ‘It was...’ Tenacity takes a breath, one hand on the strap of the case slung over his shoulder, the other waves. ‘I have no words. I don’t want it put to words, especially not now, it’s too... But yes. Yes, we should do it again. I love it.’

‘It wasn’t too distracting? And sorry for making you go on and on for two hours.’

‘I didn’t even notice those hours. And I wasn’t the one using my voice.’

Roy scuffs the ground. Everything makes sounds, and his mind finds patterns in each. ‘I’ll be fine. Thank you for playing with me. And sorry for hissing at you after.’

‘He _was_ a little obnoxious. I know I should help you, after, not go off like that...’

Roy stares resolutely at the ground, his boots pushing sand. ‘Why _didn’t_ you go with him? Or someone else...’

‘Why would I?’ Tenacity sounds genuinely confused. ‘I want to spend the night with you.’

Certainly, Tenacity doesn’t mean it the way—the way Roy wants him to. Roy isn’t sure what they are: yes, they work together sometimes, they do these performances, they sleep sometimes, maybe they can be called friends? But then... He isn’t sure he wants to define them as only one thing. Do they have to find a word for it, even?

And then, there are Roy’s vows. They are not just words for him, and he feels strongly responsible for Tenacity, protective. To ease Tenacity’s suffering... Tenacity would probably resent him if he knew about it. Tenacity values his freedom also.

‘You don’t have to deny yourself going out just because I’m a recluse,’ Roy murmurs.

‘Roy. I’m not denying myself anything. I’d rather spend time with you.’ Then Tenacity adds quietly, as though not meant for Roy to hear—but Roy can hear Tenacity’s heart, he certainly can hear everything spoken: ‘What little of it we usually have.’

Roy is torn by his yearning, but he understands that without admitting the whole truth—aloud, openly, not with this ‘I’m not exactly hiding but not shouting about it either’—what he wants wouldn’t be possible. But he thinks that declaring the truth would be the end of what little they have. With anyone else, he would have turned his back on it: if someone’s good treatment of him is conditional on Roy not being a Technomancer or hiding the fact that he is, Roy would tell them to fuck off. But with Tenacity... He also thinks that he isn’t what Tenacity would ever want. He’s strange, ‘crazy’, and at any moment people might turn on him. He’s a walking problem. Tenacity doesn’t need a problem.

‘That last song,’ Tenacity says louder, now meant for Roy to hear. ‘ _Like A Stone_ —I heard it before, but I like your version better.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he says automatically—it really _is_ nothing.

‘I wish you owned what you accomplish, Roy.’

‘It’s not an accomplishment if it takes no effort. I never learnt to make an effort.’

It must be the night time. It must be the afterglow of performance, of singing and using Technomancy at the same time—he missed that sorely. Technomancy is breathing, it’s art and science both. He doesn’t consider himself a proper singer, a proper writer, poet—but he is a Technomancer. Always will be. A crazy eremite screaming in a way nobody but a very small circle of people can even hear. He heard it described as a disease, as a curse—but if he could choose what to be born as, he’d choose to be a Technomancer again. He doesn’t need ‘curing’. He needs people to stop trying to murder him.

It gets very lonely.

‘Sure felt like you were making one,’ Tenacity says, and his voice drags Roy out of his spiralling thoughts. ‘I heard that song being described as... That it’s about god. Or God—capital G. About trying to be a good person but still being punished in the end. But hearing you sing it, I think... Put your way, it’s about love.’

Roy glances at Tenacity. The two of them are walking without a hurry: the night is good, and it seems both of them need to process the songs and the music and everything. And Tenacity sounds as lost in thought as Roy is.

Tenacity nods to himself. ‘Yes. About a... personal kind of love. When you don’t need God or gods, when you don’t even believe in them, and you don’t want the bliss of heaven—you just want... There is _someone_ you want. And you know you are undeserving, that you are a lost cause, maybe you aren’t entirely bad, but you didn’t do much good either. And you know all that—but still you want. You will pray to anyone to be with that person because... Because they are your home and your god and your heaven. And your punishment for all the shit you’ve done is this yearning, this... waiting for them forever. You don’t deserve them and you never will deserve them—and you will never stop wanting.’ Tenacity makes a few steps in silence—then shakes his head and sweeps his mane back. ‘What do I know? I’m just a bastard.’

‘Own what you have accomplished,’ Roy tells him. Tenacity has stopped, and Roy walks a step further and turns to face him.

Tenacity snorts. ‘This is not an accomplishment. Just… thinking.’ He runs a thumb under the strap, doesn’t look at Roy.

Roy loves Tenacity’s eyes. His red mane—with more and more white streaks. His thick fingers, plucking strings so expertly, sending a bolt into his rifle without an error. The scar on the side of Tenacity’s face—Roy knows that sometimes it burns: there is no physical reason for it, nothing wrong with the scar itself, but rather it’s a memory triggering the pain. Something Roy can only rarely soothe. Oh, would it that he could take away the suffering!..

He reaches out and runs the pad of his thumb along that scar. Tenacity looks at him—Tenacity often looks at Roy in ways Roy can’t even begin to decipher. The more Roy wants, the less he’s certain he understands anything.

‘Next time, I want us to sing together,’ he says at last. His heart races after Tenacity’s—or maybe it’s the other way around—or maybe they race together, parallel.

Tenacity tilts his head—into Roy’s touch. ‘Next time?’ The small movement makes the lairian sing again, very quietly.

Roy leans down, kissing Tenacity gently. ‘Yes. Next time.’

**Author's Note:**

> _[Like a Stone, sung by Shawn James](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wozIaRSqY4g) _   
>  _[The Curse of the Fold, by Shawn James](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvdUtaWBEYQ) _


End file.
